In 2018, a legislative amendment was proposed that would protect the genetic privacy of immigrant families by restricting the use of their genetic material and data to helping reunify family members. The amendment would require that government officials restrict their use of DNA analysis to when it is truly needed and ensure that biological samples... Read More
Written by Nascent Transcript writer Allison McCague August 2018 May 21 of this year marked the tenth anniversary of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a landmark piece of legislation that Senator Ted Kennedy—one of the sponsors of the bill—called “the first civil rights bill of the new century of the life sciences.” GINA’s passage was the... Read More
In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) invited comments on its intention to exempt a list of class II devices from premarket notification requirements, including tests assessing genetic health risks. ASHG responded to this request for comment by outlining its support for regulation that brings scientifically valid, evidence-based tests to market, and expressing... Read More
I am delighted to announce that ASHG’s statement on germline genome editing was published today in The American Journal of Human Genetics. This statement, written by a workgroup co-led by Kelly Ormond and Doug Mortlock and approved by ASHG’s Board of Directors, gives the Society’s perspective on the use of CRISPR/Cas9 or other similar tools... Read More
In 2017, ASHG and 10 international organizations published a position statement on human germline genome editing in The American Journal of Human Genetics. The statement recommended against genome editing culminating in human pregnancy, supported publicly funded in vitro research into its potential clinical applications, and outlined scientific and societal steps necessary before implementation of such... Read More